West Ham United and manager Nuno Espirito Santo are truly at the business end of the 2025/26 domestic Premier League campaign and whilst it has not all been plain sailing at the London Stadium since the 52 year old Portuguese former goalkeeper replaced Graham Potter in the hot seat, the Hammers battle against relegation to the Championship is alive and well.
With 31 games played in the season, the softly spoken Nuno has altered our style of play and picked up eight wins and nine draws from his own 29 matches in charge, and it has left us in 18th place in the top flight table, only one point from safety. There is also a certain irony and poetic nature to the fact that Tottenham Hotspur are directly above us and in securing our own Premier League survival, we could consign them to the second tier of the English game. For fans who prefer betting sites not on gamstop, there could be endless fun to be had with the predictions and odds for that one.
And their shiny new stadium.
Whilst we wait to see how the remainder of the season will play out, for those fans who want a bit of respite from the trials and tribulations of on pitch matters, there is always the transfer window speculation rumour mill to keep people entertained. Ultimately this summer will be a big one for the club and hopefully we will be building and tweaking to suit the improvements that we have already seen from Nuno, or the worst case is we are rebuilding to aim for promotion and bouncing back at the first time of asking.
If some of the speculation doing the rounds on the rumour mill can be believed though, it looks very likely that we are progressing with tentative transfer plans that bank on the fact that we will maintain our status and successfully avoid the drop.
One interesting rumour has us in for Rangers centre half Emmanuel Fernandez. The 24 year old defender has been enjoying a good debut season at Ibrox as Danny Rohl has got them in the mix for the Scottish Premiership title, as he is reportedly gaining interest from a number of clubs across Europe, and we are being namechecked alongside Arsenal. Our fellow London club appear to be mainly linked given the press have placed a ridiculous £35 million fee on his head, which is not happening for a player plying their trade in Glasgow, and certainly not happening given he only moved to them last summer from Peterborough United for a fee in the region of £3.5 million.
With the club having lingering doubts about the future of loanee Axel Disasi given the kind of fee that Chelsea would want for a permanent deal, Fernandez does make a lot of sense on that front given his 6ft 4in frame and if we firmed up our interest we would likely be battling with Everton – with German Bundesliga sides Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen also mentioned.
As the summer nears and West Ham know exactly what our shopping plans will be, this could definitely be a name and potential deal to remember as our preparations for the 2026/27 campaign begin to take shape.
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